[aaronatthedoublef]

Okay. Thanks. Either way I need to make it again! The cake looked pretty sad. It baked VERY fast. So I need to drop the oven temp and check it sooner. But KAB says to leave the oven door closed for 45 minutes! It was overbaked by then.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The birthday cake, while looking kind of shaggy and lopsided (my trademark?) was a success. Kate went back for seconds. I made lime n da coconut frosting. It was hard getting coconut flavor. I tried using coconut cream and coconut oil but I needed to add a touch of coconut flavoring to put it over. I also added lime juice from one small lime and zest from two.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Fascinating! I've never let choux dough sit overnight. I'll try it next time. These look great.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. Did you post your recipe? I'd rather start with yours than one off the internet. These look similar in concept to popovers.

Judging from the recipes, I'll need to make two different batches - a dairy one and a non-dairy one (yes, I know, non-dairy cheese bread sounds like an oxymoron).

[aaronatthedoublef]

I just realized - I lined the bottom of the cake pans with parchment. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. Next time.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike! These look great. I've looked at a few recipes and they all use tapioca flour and say casava is not a substitute even though they are both from the casava. Can I substitute?

[aaronatthedoublef]

It's Kate's birthday so we baked a chiffon cake yesterday and will frost it today. It collapsed from the bottom which is weird. I overbaked it and I wonder if that is why.

And I made scones this morning. Those came out well but needed more raisins this time.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA - I saw you were making a bread with apple chunks in it. Every time I've had bread with actual pieces of apple in it the bread is gluey where the apples are from too much moisture. Do you cook the apples before you put them in? Cover them in flour or cornstarch? Thanks

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made more shortbread cookies this week. The last batch was too crumbly but I made it work. This batch I upped the butter and reduced the flour and the dough came together like the pictures in the recipe.

More challah too. I made two two lb. loaves and 16 3 oz rolls. I did four strand braids. I'll try some six next and see which I like. I think I'll switch to fours from now on except for special occasions. They just look much nicer than threes.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Sorry I'm late to this. I use SAF Red in challah and apple cider is 44% of flour with honey being 14%. The only full on fail I had was when I used SAF Gold.

I have a sealed block of Fleischmann's ADY I could try that too. I have no idea how old it is though and if it is still alive.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Just found out our ShopRites have it for $2.95/5lbs so I may head there and by a bunch. Normally I buy 10lb bags at Costco for $9.99 but these are cheaper. Five lbs. is more convenient for home use but 10 lbs. is for challah making at temple. Golden whole wheat is on sale too. That appears to be the replacement for white whole wheat.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Whoa! That is great. We're on sale $4.50 for 5lbs with no limit. I'm buying a bunch as I've been using it up pretty quickly.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. These are all still sealed in their original packaging. It's BRM which iseems to be sturdier than KAB. I buy several 10lb bags of KAB bread flour a month and they ALWAYS rip. It's a little frustrating.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Kimbob - beautiful bread!

Wow Mike! We had Tommy John mugs from a give-away when he played with the White Sox.

I made ciabatta and pizza dough this week. I made challah and tried a 4 strand brade which I haven't done in years. I made two loaves. The first was a little wonky the second better. The dough was too dry so I stuck the ends together with extra water. I'll do more next week. My goal is to get up to six strands. Violet's bat mitzvah is in July and she has decided I will make the challah for it.

I made a new, salty shortbread recipe from Serious eats. They use brown sugar instead of white but that's not new. I think the first person I saw do that was Dorie Greenspan about 20 years ago. I subbed out the regular butter for brown butter. The dough was a little crumbly but I "utzed it together" as my mom would have said. They also did not spread. I wonder if the brown butter caused either or both of these. They did taste good.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks BA. I've tended to put mixers in two categories - stand or planetary like your Cuisinart and my KitchenAid - and spirals mixers like the Famags I've used. The Ank is interesting because it tries to be a hybrid that wants to be able to mix bread and cakes, cookies, etc. It appears to be a spiral trying to be like a planetary. Ooni makes one now as well now. The folks at Pleasant Hill said the Ank works with much large batches of dough than a comparable stand mixer. It also works very well with stiffer doughs like bagel dough, especially when using high protein flour. The bagel guys my son works for love the Ooni for home bagel making but that is all they bake so they cannot tell me about cookies or cakes.

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